As the use of mobile devices increases, forwarding services related to mobile-device use have become more widespread. As examples, call forwarding and Short Message Service (SMS)-message forwarding have become increasingly popular.
Call forwarding is a feature that allows incoming calls to a user's mobile device to be redirected (or forwarded) to an alternate mobile device or to a landline device, as examples. Typically, a user uses call forwarding for a mobile device when the user cannot—or does not want to—be reached at the user's mobile device, but can be—or prefers to be—reached at an alternate mobile device or at a landline device. In some implementations, the user's mobile device will ring once to remind the user that an incoming call is being forwarded to an alternate mobile device or to a landline device. In other implementations, the user's mobile device will give no indication of a call being forwarded.
Similar to call forwarding, SMS-message forwarding is a feature that allows incoming SMS messages sent to a user's mobile device to be redirected to an alternate mobile device or to an e-mail address, as examples. A user of a mobile device may use this feature when the user needs to or prefers to receive incoming messages at an alternate device or e-mail address, as examples. Note that the SMS-message-forwarding function may be implemented on the network side or by the user's mobile device. That is, in some implementations, once SMS forwarding has been activated, messages addressed to the user's mobile device may be delivered to the forwarding device or address without ever reaching the user's mobile device. In other implementations, however, the user's mobile device may receive the messages, and then forward them on to the forwarding device or address.